Part 14 (1/2)

Brock had trouble accepting the words he knew to be true. He imagined this was the way detective's felt when they had a murder victim that was senselessly slaughtered, and their initial thoughts being who would do such a thing, and why?

”Besides Chuck Durnham, is there anybody parading about town hara.s.sing and killing people?”

James thought on it. ”The people who are alive out there are fighting to the death. If you succ.u.mb to the sleep, it's like a brain dead coma. No thoughts. No living. Just nothing.” He guided Brock to the window by the arm and pointed to the body lumped against a blue mail box on the side of the road. The body was curled up like a dead mouse. ”If you touched him, he'd be warm. He's alive in that sh.e.l.l, though barely. He's probably rotting. Who knows how long he can stay like that before he won't come back to life. But I have a feeling if we put money into him, he'd come to consciousness.”

Brock said, ”It's so unbelievable.”

”You're right about that. I just think it's strange when this s.h.i.+t started happening, it was about us needing money to live, and now, something is taking that money back. The question is what is taking the money.”

Brock stared outside, counting the bodies strewn about the steps of walkways, hunched over bus stops, benches, open patches of gra.s.s, randomly laying about the street beached like fish carca.s.ses. Things didn't add up. ”So something is changing. Whatever rules you were surviving by are now altered.”

James picked up the scotch bottle and turned it in his hands. ”More and more things are inaccessible without money.”

”Well, we're not getting anywhere speculating and hypothesizing. I want answers from that Chuck guy. I'll make him talk. I don't care if he has an axe. I don't care what the f.u.c.k he has.”

James gave him an incredulous look. ”I'm with you, but your sister had a point somewhere in all her bulls.h.i.+t. How are two old fogies like ourselves going to intimidate a man like that?”

Imagining Hannah in the clutches of the stranger, or as one of the lifeless bodies in the street, it deepened his determination. Angel had already pushed aside the barricade, so he simply walked up to the front entrance doors and waited for James to follow him. When he finally followed, Brock said, ”So let's take a walk to his house and figure it out on the way there.”

PHONE CONVERSATIONS.

w.i.l.l.y peered out of the windows of his uncle's house and saw n.o.body in the distance. What was he doing here? What was he waiting for? Even considering the horrible things he'd seen today, w.i.l.l.y was growing antsy. Something could be on its way to kill him, and he wouldn't know about it. Indecision kept w.i.l.l.y sitting in the living room chair beside the front window. The gra.s.s out front was chocked full of holes, and that steam kept billowing out. Regardless of why this was happening, it was here he stayed. Live now and die later, or die now and stay dead later, he easily chose the best option.

So long sitting with nothing to do, his eyes began to get heavy. Even the occasional clack of a gunshot far off or a scream that lasted only long enough to be identified as a scream failed to keep him alert. He was exhausted from a long day of running in terror from things.

w.i.l.l.y slipped into a short-lived sleep. When he did wake, he came to when he felt a weight in his hands and heard the crinkle of a plastic bag. What really woke him was the sound of coins rattling against coins. Once he computed there was a bag of money in his hands, he jerked with a start, dropping the loot onto the floor. Coins rolled across the wooden floor, banging into walls and the legs of furniture.

w.i.l.l.y spoke the house, the only culprit. ”Who's there? Who the h.e.l.l is there?” He peered into rooms, turning over shadows, flipping on lights, attacking corners, and questioning unknown intruders. ”Come on out! I know you're here. You can't hide from me. What's the meaning of this?”

He was in the bathroom gawking at an empty shower after he pulled aside the curtain when the phone rang. Every series of rings was like a beating. He felt his blood channel faster in his veins.

What now? What else f.u.c.ked up is going to happen to me?

The phone kept ringing. He let it go for ten times before he knew it wasn't going to stop until he picked it up.

w.i.l.l.y returned to the living room. He swiped the steel fireplace poker on his way to the phone for safety's sake. He stepped on coins as he got closer to the phone that hung on the kitchen wall. He saw his reflection in the face of the microwave. He looked distraught and nothing like himself. It was as if his skin had been shrink-wrapped to his bones and his eyes were as wide as they could be.

He tried to pick up the phone, but he couldn't pry the phone from the hook. Steel anchors held it in place. Steel covered the digits. On the square of steel over the digits was a thin slit in the middle.

The coins had woke him up. Something or someone had given him the coins for a reason. The phone had to be the reason. It was a d.a.m.n good guess, he thought.

He picked up a coin off the living room floor and shoved it through the hole.

The phone kept ringing. The hooks over the receiver released themselves, and he was able to pick up the phone. w.i.l.l.y said, ”Um, h-h.e.l.lo?”

A familiar voice spoke. It sounded like the connection was poor and full of static. ”Call someone/dial the number/put a coin in and talk away.”

That ended the conversation. The talker hung up on him. The phone was s.n.a.t.c.hed back onto the hook so fast he didn't see it yanked back. It's as if the hooks sprang forward and took back the phone.

w.i.l.l.y stood there and watched the phone expecting it to ring again. It didn't. After a time, he walked away from the phone and stomped into the living room. He studied the quarters scattered about the floor. It could've been a hundred dollars in quarters, he thought.

'Put a coin in and talk away.'

It was an invitation. The man's voice wasn't threatening. It harbored excitement, the withholding of a bigger surprise. He wasn't getting anywhere standing in place like a fool, and he certainly wouldn't get anywhere running outside to certain death. He was wasting time. His wife probably wondered what the h.e.l.l had happened to him.

My wife!

w.i.l.l.y scooped up a handful of quarters and stuck one into the phone slot. The hooks released the phone, the steel plate came open like a door, and he had access to the digits. w.i.l.l.y dialed his home number. After three long rings, a female voice answered. Through a veil of fuzz, the woman's voice was muddled by the constant wind that rattled in long intervals in the background.

”Is that you, w.i.l.l.y?” The way she talked, it sounded like he'd disturbed her from a deep sleep. He expected his wife, not this crotchety sounding woman. He waited on the line and didn't answer.

”It is you, w.i.l.l.y?/you're scared, and I know why/don't be/this is all for you/everything's for you from now on, Chuckles/you were a good boy/he didn't see you grow into a man, but now he can, w.i.l.l.y/now he can/he wasn't done living, and he wasn't done spending time with you/he's got good ideas, and lots of them/that's one thing about the guy/he never ran out of good ideas.”

That ended the call. w.i.l.l.y was knocked back two steps when the phone shot back onto the receiver. The steel plate slammed down over the digits. w.i.l.l.y leaned against the counter so he wouldn't fall back. He was breathing hard, almost panting.

”Get it together.” w.i.l.l.y paused to catch his breath. ”Who was that lady?”

She called him ”Chuckles.” His uncle called him that, but who else would know that? The answer soon came to him, though it didn't make any sense. It was Suzie, w.i.l.l.y's great grandmother. She had died when he was twelve. She lived on the same block as his aunt and uncle did.

”Why did I get Suzie when I dialed my wife?”

This would be a trial and error process.

w.i.l.l.y gained the courage to shove another quarter into the slot. This time he dialed the police. The line picked up this time. The words sounded like the person on the other line was talking in a speeding car that was driving through a tunnel.

”Yeah.”

w.i.l.l.y scoffed at the reply. ”That's all you've got to say? 'Yeah?' I've seen people burst into pieces and melt into nothing, and, and-'Yeah' is all you've f.u.c.king got!”

The man sounded like he was sucking on a cigar and really getting his mouth around it. ”You know, I always thought the cops should be judge and jury/the cops know people/the judges in their courtroom aren't on the streets/they don't talk to people/the judges don't know how to tell truth from lies/they can't read into people/they know jack s.h.i.+t about their community/so I figure the cops should decide guilt or innocence/hey, I've got another idea/how about put the electric chair in the local prisons/let the cops throw the f.u.c.kin' switch/drive-thru frying/do that so the other perps out there know who's the boss/crime doesn't pay/drive-thru frying, yeah/streamline the punishments/we take back our communities/we make honest people out of the sc.u.m of the earth.”

w.i.l.l.y hung up. He'd been talking, asking the man questions, but the cop wouldn't stop going on about his ”drive-thru” electric chair idea.

”Trial and error,” w.i.l.l.y whispered to himself.

w.i.l.l.y dialed the police again after inserting another quarter.

”/I always thought handcuffs weren't enough/they should shock the perp every time they resist arrest/”

The same cop was going on and on about his ideas.

w.i.l.l.y left the phone on the hook a moment. He turned away from it and noticed the steel slot on the fridge. It covered the handle and the edge of the door so it couldn't open without being unlocked. He inserted a quarter, the hooks released, and he opened the fridge. It was stocked with enough food to feed a family of four. He decided to grab and a beer and before he could think of anything else, it slammed shut on its own.

”Just what is that the h.e.l.l about?”

w.i.l.l.y popped the tab and drank the beer anyway.

The cold beer helped dial down his thoughts.

”This is happening. Okay. This is real. So treat it like its real. Keep calling people.”